What are the benefits of staying at the host hotel?

You will be surrounded by your fellow conference attendees, NAB and AAPCCA board members, along with staff from the AAPC national office. It is also a great chance to meet new friends and catch up with all your conference friends from previous years.

What does my conference registration include?

All of the general and breakout sessions, and all of the meals during the program, including the member appreciation banquet lunch.

Will I meet any of the National Advisory Board, the AAPCCA Board, or any of the AAPC staff at conference?

Yes, both the National Advisory Board (NAB) and the AAPCCA Board are involved in putting on the conference and are available throughout the conference to meet and network with conference attendees. You will also have the opportunity to meet other staff members from the AAPC national office.

Where will I find my handouts for the conference?

Handouts will be available two weeks prior to and three weeks following the conference. They are accessible to registered attendees conference web page (once you are logged in). If you wish, you can print out the handouts and bring them to the conference, but it is not necessary. Paper copies of the handouts will not be provided at the conference.

A code card lists all of the approved sessions on one document. The vendor portion of the code card includes the title, index number, specialty designations, and number of CEUs for each session. The attendee portion of the code card has the same information excluding the index number. Each AAPC member attendee should be given an attendee code card prior to the conference. The index number of a session should be released to the attendees at the close of each session. It is the responsibility of the attendee to write the index number on their code card and retain the document.

2024 HEALTHCON International Agenda

GS1: Conference Welcome

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM | 1 CEU

Presenter: Dan Schwebach, Chief Business Development Officer & Raemarie Jimenez, Chief Product Officer.

AAPC will kick off the conference with his welcome message. They plan to introduce exciting new and upcoming developments within AAPC and the industry and to relate how these changes will impact your daily life.

Breakout session 1

10:05 AM – 11:20 AM | 1.25 CEUs

1A: Generative AI and NLP in Medical Coding

Presenter: Balaji Sundararajan | Guru Raja

Description: Medical billing is a complex and tedious process that involves coding, filing, verifying, and collecting claims for healthcare services. Medical billing errors can result in revenue loss, compliance issues, and customer dissatisfaction. To improve the quality and efficiency of medical billing, many healthcare organizations are adopting generative AI and NLP technologies. Generative AI and NLP are branches of artificial intelligence that can create new data from existing data, such as text, speech, images, video, and code.

1B: Value Based Healthcare & Bundled Payments

Presenter: Dr. Sara Al Dallal

Description: Bundled Payments are a key component of VBHC, where a single payment is made for all services related to a specific treatment or condition over a defined period. This approach encourages providers to coordinate care more effectively, as they share the financial risk associated with the treatment. By receiving a fixed payment for a bundle of services, providers are incentivized to deliver high-quality care efficiently, reducing unnecessary tests and procedures, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes and lower overall healthcare costs.

EH1 – Break

11:20 AM – 11:30 AM

Breakout session 2

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM | 1.25 CEUs

2A: ICD-10-CM 2025 Updates - What Healthcare professionals need to observe?

Presenter: Hemamalini Alex

Description: We will look into the summary of the updated changes of 2025 ICD-10-CM updates. CMS announced the updates for diagnosis coding will happen during April and October every year. These codes are to be used for date of discharges from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. There are close to 252 new codes, 36 code deletions and 13 code revisions. We will discuss in brief about the updates of the codes and the guidelines.

2B: AI - coding and CDI

Presenter: Michelle Broberg

Description: Artificial intelligence in healthcare, is changing the landscape of healthcare. However, this evolution needs to be understood by all so that the buzzwords are not just words but identification of that technology to ensure that we enable a better, safer, smarter environment for coding of the future.

EH2 – Break

12:45 PM – 12:55 PM

Breakout session 3

01:00 PM – 2:15 PM | 1.25 CEUs

3A: Denial Management - Impact and Role of Al in Denials

Presenter: Adi Laxmi, CPC, CPC-I, CIC, CRC, CPMA, CCS, AM

Description:

• Understand denial and its root cause

• Strategize action to fix current denial and provide insights to avoid recurrence in the future.

CDI and its role in avoiding denials - contribution of coder for CDI

• Change Health outage and its impact on billing

• BCP and Proactive approach to be followed due to technology partner outage.

• Recovery plan and timelines to achieve a stable state

• Al and its capabilities in different specialties

3B: Hospital - Acquired conditions

Presenter: Dr. Farheen Mashhood Kirmani, MBBS, CCSP, CPC, CPC-P, CPMA, CDEO, CAIMC, CMR

Description: The presentation comprises of understanding HAC, POA indicators, Ensuring accurate coding for HAC-related services, Health systems are struggling with interoperability, and the associated challenges due to HAC have effects throughout the enterprise and how to improve with better training, clinical documentation, following the correct billing rules. Managing HAC Claims in Recovery Audits.

EH3 – Lunch Break

2:15 PM – 2:45 PM

Breakout session 4

2:50 PM – 4:05 PM | 1.25 CEUs

4A: E&M Coding tips and complexity of G2211

Presenter: S ShivaKumar, BPT, DPF, CPC, COC, CEMC, CCS-P

Description: Nuances of Visit complexity add-on code G2211 - To enlighten the mysteries behind the coding CPT G2211 and tips to increase the revenue for the provider.

EM Coding tips to boost Physician revenue - Greater emphasis is being placed on time-based coding to enhance provider documentation, which will ease coding accuracy and increase provider income.

4B: Clinicians role in documentation and coding, requirements for IP and OP

Presenter: Dr. Ramya Vincent, PhD, CPC, CBCS

Description: The content of the presentation will include the following:

1. What is a good documentation per coder/biller perspective with samples

2. What are mandatory requirements to be documented by physicians for OP and IP claims

3. Most common documentation errors by Physicians

4. Tools available to help doctor documentation

5. Revenue augmentation or leakage due to documentation

EH4 – Break

4:05 PM – 4:15 PM

Breakout session 5

4:15 PM – 5:30 PM | 1.25 CEUs

5A: Home Health Care Coding Overview

Presenter: Sreenivas Reddy, CPC, BCHH-C

Description:

1. Definition of home health care.

2. Two main coding systems used in home health coding.

3. Describe the purpose and function of the Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS).

4. Identify the different home health coding levels and their significance.

5. The basic principles of the Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) and its impact on coding.

5B: Code set in GCC region

Presenter: Ali Hadi

Description: Yet to Come/Stay Tuned

EH4 – Break

5:30 PM – 5:45 PM

Breakout session 6

5:45 PM – 7:00 PM | 1.25 CEUs

A: Risk Adjustment - HCC+ CDI

Presenter: TBD

Description: Yet to Come/Stay Tuned

6B: Auditing Payers

Presenter: Pommani Ebenezer, CPC, CPMA

Description: The presentation will include, the aims or objectives of auditing a provider. Audit Scope and Criteria, Data Collection Process, Coding Accuracy Assessment, Compliance Check, Issues Identified with RCA action plan and recommendations, Documentation and Reporting, Feedback sessions, Follow-Up and Monitoring, and conclusion.

GS2: Local Chapter Pannel | Q&A Session with Give Aways

7:00 PM – 8:00 PM | 1 CEU

Presenter: Local Chapter Team

Raemarie Jimenez Chief Product Officer - AAPC

Dan Schwebach Chief Business Development Officer – AAPC

Ali Hadi, Sr. Director – Education & Training - AAPC

Brian Van Norman - Executive Director - AAPC

Virtual conference

HEALTHCON International 2024